


(the day you) rise from the darkness of the well alive

by PaperKatla



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Gen, Hospitalization, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Genocide, Medical Inaccuracies, Medical Procedures, Number Five | The Boy Has Issues, Number Five | The Boy-centric, Pneumonia, Post-Season/Series 02, Protective Diego Hargreeves, References to Bosnian War, Soft Diego Hargreeves, Soft Vanya Hargreeves, montana, sepsis, some real specific rural Flathead County references
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:21:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27582649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaperKatla/pseuds/PaperKatla
Summary: Five’s fever had spiked again by the time they pulled up to the cabin. Luther grabbed most of the luggage while Diego leaned in the back door, hands held out in surrender to a particularly feral-looking Five. “Promise you won’t bite me?” he asked.“Why would I promise that?”--The Hargreeves hide from the Sparrow Academy and kidnapping charges, and try to get their shit together in rural Montana.
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy & Diego Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & The Hargreeves (Umbrella Academy)
Comments: 21
Kudos: 227





	(the day you) rise from the darkness of the well alive

Spring |  _ I circled the well until I flew from myself to what isn’t of it _

‘Cabin’ was a loose term for the three bedroom, two bath A-frame that Allison had rumored their way into. Eight miles down a half-plowed dirt road somewhere between Hungry Horse and Browning, it sat nestled in the shadow of the Bob Marshall Wilderness. A well-stocked woodshed was tucked behind the cabin, along with a disused outhouse and tumble-down shed. A trickle of a river that led to a small lake was just a short hike away from the cabin. There was no one for miles and miles. 

The Hargreeves were completely alone.

Five’s fever had spiked again by the time they pulled up as close to the cabin as they could, their tires spinning uselessly in the last slushy bit of the winter snow. Luther grabbed most of the luggage while Diego leaned in the back door, hands held out in surrender to a particularly feral-looking Five. “Promise you won’t bite me?” he asked. 

“Why would I promise that?” Five replied, grinning like a shark.

Sighing, Diego wrapped one arm around Five’s shoulders and hooked the other around his knees. Diego could feel Five trembling as he grabbed a tight fistful of Diego’s collar. It was probably killing the prickly old bastard that he needed to be carried like this, but he was doing a pretty good job of pretending he was above having his massive ego bruised. He was still heavy—whoever said kids weren’t heavy was a liar—but not as heavy as he should be. A little, knobby spine dug into the meat of Diego’s arm. He ignored it, kicking the car door closed behind him, and grouching at Vanya as she tried to tuck a blanket around Five. “Oh my God, it’s, like, twenty yards to the door. He’s not gonna die!” 

Inside the house was almost colder than outside. Klaus immediately hunkered down in front of a dusty wood stove, fiddling uselessly with the flue. “Why couldn’t one of us have had fire powers?” He gestured wildly at the pile of old newspaper and kindling he’d stuffed inside. “Flame on!” Nothing happened. Annoyed, he pulled out a lighter. 

There was a sagging, brown sofa—log frame, with one support slipping out of its hole—in the middle of the living room. Diego waited for Vanya to fuss with the pillows and get a little nest of blankets ready before less-than-gently dropping Five down onto the cushions. “You good?” 

Five glared. “Peachy.”

“I’ll start some dinner,” Luther said, grabbing the bright orange Canyon Foods grocery bags. 

Allison followed him. “I’ll help.”

Vanya fussed with the blankets, pulled the hood of Five’s sweater up over his ears, ignoring his complaints. Leaving Five to Vanya, Diego wandered away, following the curve of the stairs up towards the bedrooms— _ their _ bedrooms. Because, according to Allison, this stupid ‘cabin’ in the middle of bumfuck nowhere was their new home. After all, who was gonna think to look for six fucked-up former superheroes on the run in rural Montana? 

And they were on the run. Partly to do with Dad’s new kids, the Sparrow Academy, but mostly because they’d abducted a child. Well, technically they’d abducted a pissy senior citizen crammed inside a pubescent boy’s body, but no one was exactly buying that story. So, kidnappers they were!

While he may not have been a child, Five  _ was  _ an idiot. Paranoid, tunnel-visioned, withholding, and generally unpleasant to be around. And while Diego understood that everything that Five did could be chalked up to his singular goal of keeping them all alive and together, he kinda wished he would take the asshole-ness down a fucking notch.  The prickly little bastard had been running himself ragged, all twitchy and paranoid and going through a painful growth spurt that left him short-tempered and mean. He’d followed them around, constantly trying to herd them back together, snarling at them for leaving his sight. So, Diego had actually found it a bit funny when Five had stumbled into the kitchen one afternoon and stubbornly refused to look any of them in the eye when he asked Allison to go buy him Children’s Tylenol from the corner store. 

It got not-funny really fast.

The delirium they’d all accepted with a sigh. Like, sure, the old man was finally going senile. But, then, there’d been the fever, and then—

—well, then, they were suddenly all standing around like idiots inside a children’s hospital. They’d got a glimpse of the dirty details — the beginnings of the intubation process, the awful sounds of a screw gun as it drilled a needle straight into the bone of Five’s skinny shoulder — before nurses bullied them out of the room.

Diego had avoided the hospital and made himself a home in the Argyle Public Library, instead. He put in hours of research to avoid looking at Five with a plastic tube shoved down his throat. The sick feeling in his stomach grew with the research. He gratefully abandoned it the moment Five could breath safely on his own. Fuck the research, it was worse than looking at Five at his weakest.

Five and a half weeks later, they were busting Five out. Turns out, medical professionals have a lot of questions when it comes to kids with shrapnel wounds, home-done stitches, and a world-class case of sepsis. So, Montana it was. 

To Diego, it sounded like a really shitty sitcom set-up. Coming this fall, at 6:00/5:00 central: Five grown-ups and the meanest teenage boy most people would ever meet, in a cabin, in the woods! Oh, the hijinks! 

The first bedroom had a set of twin beds tucked near the window. The mattresses were bare, and an old painting of some saint hung crookedly on the wall over a dusty dresser. It looked like a child’s bedroom, simple and small. Diego tried to imagine which of them would share it—the girls, maybe. The next room mirrored the last, except that one of the twin beds had been replaced with a bunk bed. Thank God—if anyone had been forced to share it would have only ended in bloodshed. 

Finally, tucked at the end of the hall, the master bedroom had a view of the expanse of trees that made up the Bob, and Diego could catch a glimmer of the river Allison had mentioned as it caught the pink glow of the sunset. He sank onto the mattress, letting his arms fall into his lap, and let out a long, slow sigh. His breath clouded the air in front of him, and he smiled, blew it out again, and again. Outside the window, the trees grew into dark shadows. 

  
  


—-

  
  


Luther took it upon himself to wake Five up from the obvious twitching grip of a nightmare the next morning. It went as well as could have been expected. Five woke up exactly the way that a feverish 58-year-old alcoholic with decades of unprocessed trauma would wake up — by punching Luther square in the nose and biting Allison when she jumped in to calm him down. “Ow! Five!” Allison shrieked. “It’s us, asshole!”

Diego stumbled into the living room from upstairs just in time to see Five stop, fist raised. He was crouching on the sofa, clutching onto the back of a cushion with one arm, his breath coming in short wheezing gasps. Dropping onto his ass, he put a hand to his chest and coughed, eyes watering. Everyone stood back, watching, waiting, staring at their deceptively young-looking brother as he fought for air through weakened lungs. “I’m fine,” he croaked. The ventilator-acquired pneumonia had come hot on the heels of the doctors declaring Five was safe to breathe on his own, but the stubborn bastard continued to insist he didn’t have pneumonia at all. “Stop looking at me like that.” 

The spell broke. They turned away, pretending everything was normal. 

“Breakfast?” Vanya asked. “Luther made cheeser eggs.” 

Diego inched forward, arms out. “Here, man, lemme carry you.” 

“I’ll blink there.” 

“No you won’t.” 

He didn’t. Diego carried him.

It had been years since Diego had even thought about ‘cheeser eggs’— the delicious mix of scrambled eggs and nearly half a block of Tillamook that had been the first thing he’d learned to cook for himself as a child. He’d been so proud of himself, of this singular act of independence, and the gooey concoction quickly became a staple of the Hargreeves family diet. And now, here he was, sitting at a tiny table in the cabin’s freezing cold kitchen, crowded between Five and Klaus, and eating cheeser eggs. 

Five picked at his food, moving the eggs around on his plate and completely ignoring his coffee. His fork scraped against the plate, making Diego wince, and catching Vanya’s attention. “Still nauseous?” 

“It’s the sepsis meds,” he said. “I’m fine.” 

She stood up anyway. “I’ll make you some peppermint tea.” 

Allison set down her coffee. “Which reminds me—I need everyone to make a shopping list. The groceries we bought are only gonna last a few days. We want to try and keep our heads down, so if we stock up, we can avoid town. Klaus and I can go get everything we’ll need.” 

At the mention of shopping Klaus perked up. “Oh, yes! Perhaps shopping for a few winter-spring ensembles. I saw a lovely little thrift store in Columbia Falls — big, fuck-off Ten Commandments sign—we could—” 

“We’ll all go,” Five said. 

“Five, no,” Allison said. She reached across the table for his hand. He pulled it away. “We’re gonna need the back for the groceries. And you’re still recovering from pneumonia—”

“I don’t have pneumonia.” 

“Also, we technically kidnapped you,” Klaus said. 

It had been easy enough to slip out of the hospital. They had spent a week getting the nurses used to the sight of them, going for “walks” around the hospital floor. One of them carrying an indignant Five, bundled in his thrifted pajamas and Luther’s ratty old hoodie, another carrying his oxygen, a third pushing his IV stand. The day Five was freed from the nasal cannula, they packed their things, and calmly went for a “walk” right out the front doors. 

The Amber Alert came bursting onto the radio when they were already three hours out of town. Five had been asleep in the backseat, his head in Vanya’s lap, looking sweet and like someone who had never tried to stab a pediatric cardiologist. Diego remembered glancing at him in the rearview mirror, the wheezing sound of the ventilator still ringing in his ears, and the memory of what he’d discovered in the library rattling around between his ears. His imagination was pulling overtime hours for no pay and wouldn’t go home.

His hand shot up without his permission, fork full of cheeser eggs still in his grip. “I’ll stay here with Five.” 

Growling, Five slammed a fist down on the table. “I don’t need a babysitter, and I’m not staying here,” he snapped. Vanya slipped a mug of peppermint tea in front of him. He ignored it. “Don’t you morons get it? We have to stick together.” 

Allison exchanged a look with first Luther, then Vanya, then finally looked again at Five’s pale face as he glared across the table at her. His fork was clenched in one trembling fist—he was always trembling these days, wrung out for the sepsis and the pneumonia and the paranoia. Some days, Diego thought he looked like one of those dogs pulled from a dog fight, snarling and barking at anything that moved. 

“Five,” Allison began, softly. Five tensed, sensing an attack. “Five, what do you think will happen if we’re not together?”

A single stuttered breath, and he blinked away. 

“Goddammit.” Allison was on her feet, Vanya leaping up after her while Luther stared stupidly at where Five had just sat. 

Diego grabbed hold of her arm. “I got this. Go do the shopping.” He could see the argument starting to bubble up. On her face, the mother, the bossy sister, and the angry superhero all warred for the top spot—they all wanted a piece of the little teleporting shit. Diego squeezed her arm, gently, waiting until Allison let out a slow, calming breath. “Take Klaus and go shopping. The rest of us will look for him. Little prick can’t have gone far.” 

“If he’s outside—”

“We’ll find him,” he said. “And then Vanya can baby him the rest of the day as punishment.” 

  
  


—

  
  


They found him. Or, rather, Diego found him. Outside, back against the tumble-down shed, shaking with the cold and the exhaustion of having blinked so far after so long. He wasn’t crying. Diego wasn’t sure why he expected that he would be crying. He had never actually seen the asshole cry, but still. The research came back to him. The sick, new knowledge he’d found at the public library. He looked down at Five, and that dumbass overachiever that was his imagination went wild. 

But Diego didn’t want to think about that. 

So, he sat on his ass in a slushy pile of snow and muddy grass next to Five. Diego’s pants were immediately soaked through. A sharp wind whistled through the trees from the lake, stinging his face. It was fucking freezing outside, and he wasn’t the one who had just left the hospital. 

“You wanna tell me what the hell that was about?”

Five picked at the snow with a stick, ignoring him. 

It was weird to think that this was an old man sitting next to him. Alcoholic, arrogant, and with a hair-trigger temper. Pack those qualities inside a tiny body, and it was easy just to see a traumatized child, emotionally and socially stunted, lashing out in anger. But he wasn’t, and, anyway, Diego wasn’t the mushy type. So—

“Okay, then, you know what I think?” 

“Oh, please, enlighten me,” Five said, words dripping sarcasm. 

“I think you’re fucked up, same as us, and just can’t admit it, old man,” Diego replied. “I think you don’t even know why you gotta keep us together anymore. You just can’t give up that fucking control.” 

Five stiffened. “Oh, please,” he sneered.

“You’re runnin’ scared,” Diego pressed. “Take a breath.” 

“I am not go—” 

Diego lightly punched his arm. “No, literally—look over there. At the woods, at the lake, and take a breath.” He drew a big, exaggerated breath, motioning for Five to follow his lead. Reluctantly, he did. Then, they took another, then a third that had Five coughing again. 

Something shifted in Five, settled. His shoulders relaxed and he looked away, working his jaw and stabbing even harder at the snow with his stick. “For real, dude? When you were in the hospital—I was scared. You freaked everyone out. That white-knuckle grip you have on your idea of your control is gonna kill you one day.” 

“What are you, my therapist?” 

“Five—” 

A huff. Then—“I’m sorry I scared you all.” 

Nodding, Diego stood up. That was enough feelings for one day. “You feeling steady enough to walk?” 

Five looked away, jaw tight, and reluctantly held up his arms. 

  
  


—

  
  


That night, Diego carried Five up to sleep in the bedroom with him and Klaus. They brushed their teeth, and laid in the dark, letting Klaus coax them into playing old, childhood games with them. 

“What do you mean, they’re out of dinner rolls?” 

“They’re out of dinner rolls.” 

“How can they have balls and barbells and no dinner rolls?” 

“Because they don’t.” 

“I think you can’t spell. I think the drugs addled the shriveled walnut you call a brain.” 

“And I think you’re just mad because my amazing, beautiful, imaginary store doesn’t have dinner rolls.” 

Diego let himself drift, his brothers bickering becoming white noise. His mind wandered without direction, until he found himself back in the public library. He remembered staring at the results of his hours of research with the same horrible, sinking feeling he’d felt when he’d first seen Five, unconscious, chest rising and falling in time with the hiss of the ventilator. 

The remains of five-year-old Samir Dizdarevic were discovered, still held in his mother’s arms, in a mass grave in semi-rural Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1998. By that time, decomposition had three years to do its dirty work, so his aunt identified Samir by his Mickey Mouse jacket and his mother by her fillings. None of them could quite say why those details, written so blandly in a twenty-something-year-old newspaper article and enlarged on a microfiche machine, fucked them up so much. They’d all seen death — real, grizzly death — but Samir had a mother and an aunt and a Mickey Mouse jacket and he’d died for fuck-all. And he was five. 

And he was Five. 

And Diego felt like he’d failed. 

But he wasn’t Five. Five was lying across from him, in a twin bed, arguing about some stupid kid’s game. He was not dying of sepsis. He did not have a tube in his throat. His fever had gone down. He was alive. And he was not Samir.

Slowly, Diego turned to look out the window at the moon, the trees. He took a breath and let go of his own white-knuckled grip on the idea of control. For the first time, in a long time, Diego let himself relax for just one fucking minute. 

Then, he turned back to his brother. “I went to the store and bought barbiturates.” 

“Yes! My store has that!” 

“You’re a fucking liar, Klaus!” 

**Author's Note:**

> For the moment, this will be kept as a one-shot, since I don't have any other ideas for the other seasons in the life of the Hargreeves in Montana. But I'm leaving the possibility for more chapters open. Feel free to make suggestions.
> 
> Title and chapter title are from the poem "I Didn't Apologize to the Well" by Mahmoud Dwarmish.


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